This was quite a day to usher in Spring. First, I find that one of my best friends passed away. RIP Jeff! I find a precious custom made ring for a nice lady, and then my San Diego Aztecs win their NCAA playoff game in overtime. Each emotional and important in their own special way.

When I contacted Emily, she said that she thought that she had dropped her engagement ring in a patio area of her apartment building and needed help locating it. I loaded up the car with my gear, grabbed my wife, and headed to Sunset Cliffs, an area on the south side of Ocean Beach. When I get to the address, I find it’s an apartment building right on the cliff overlooking the ocean. Nice view! I meet Emily and get the full story on the ring. Her fiance’ had it custom made in Bahrain so it had extra special meaning for their up coming marriage. In fact, they were to have a photo shoot in a few days! Without the ring….well, it just woundn’t be the same. She explained that one of the stones had come loose from the ring so she took the ring off and put it into a zippered pocket in her purse along with her keys. Well, before she could get to the jeweler, an event happened that drew her attention. It seems a person decided to commit suicide by driving their car off the cliff to the rocks below right behind their apartment! Really, I’m not making this up! Naturally, this drew a crowd, Emily included. She had a perfect bird’s eye view from the patio area right above the scene when she decided to grab her keys out of her purse. You guessed it, the ring, unbeknowst to her, came out with the keys and fell somewhere in the landscaping or over the edge of a metal railing that ran around the edge of the steel reinforced concrete patio.

There were two main areas where she was standing with one being the most likely. I started there and immediately discovered that this wasn’t going to be easy with the rebar in the concrete, the heavy steel railing, and the high bushes in between them. I detected there the best I could with my small coil on my E-trac and then started to work my way over to the other area, thinking that I’d probably be back with my pin pointer to complete the search. There also was a posibility that the ring had fallen over the edge of the railing and into some iceplant as she had been leaning over it to view the rescue of the driver below. I cringed at that thought as it was almost straight down for 30-40 ft. and without a ladder from below, there was virtually no access. I wound my way to the other viewing area and ran into the same problems….did I mention that this had steel reinforced concrete and huge, rusty, Titaniclike ship railing in the search area? As luck would have it, I got a solid gold ring hit right off the bat but it was mixed with other sounds that were interfering. I swung around 90 degrees and got a better hit free of interference. From that angle, I could just see the edge of a beautiful ring poking out from under a dead leaf. I picked it up and handed it to Emily who understandably was overjoyed. I’m glad I could help in making your upcoming photo shoot and marriage come off as you had planned. Thank you for the reward! Now go get that stone installed! Here’s the lovely ring and Emily’s beautiful smile. Check out that view too!